Typically motorized vehicles have a fascia which extends along the front end and/or the rear end in order to absorb energy from front and/or rear end impacts. Furthermore, the fascias are designed to improve the aesthetics of the vehicle by covering up components of the vehicle with an exterior surface that complies with the class A standards set by car manufacturers for OEMs. When the fascia is mounted to the vehicle, it extends along the front end and/or rear end and is curved towards the wheel base. The section between the front end and/or rear end in the wheel base is known as a wing, and a wing typically has a reduced structural integrity due to the shape of the wing. This area of the fascia is also referred to as a featureless area due to the wing having less structural integrity then other portions of the fascia.
Car manufacturers have a standard known as the “firm feel guidelines” in which a vehicle component must have adequate structural integrity to support a force applied by a person. Due to the size and shape of the wing portion of the fascia, the wing must be reinforced in order to satisfy the firm feel guidelines. However, it is time consuming and costly to increase the structural integrity of the wing. The thickness of the wing can be increased in order to add structural integrity to the wing, however, to do this the injection molding or forming tooling must be altered to accommodate the increased size of the wing. Thus, the retooling for this improvement adds to the time and cost of manufacturing the fascia. Increasing the thickness of the fascia wing using the same material used to produce other portions of the fascia, can be costly due to the material cost typically used to manufacture the fascia.
One alternate design involves using a second material placed behind the fascia which is less expensive while adding the necessary structural integrity. However, due to the location of the wing, it is difficult to place materials between the fascia wing and the vehicle. For example, an expandable foam can be injected between the fascia wing and the vehicle in order to increase the thickness of the wing. However, it is difficult and time consuming to inject the foam in the confined area between the fascia wing and the vehicle.
Therefore, it is desirable to develop a mechanism for reinforcing the fascia wing in which a secondary component is placed on the interior side of the fascia.